


What Magic

by AZ-5 (elim_garak), Valonqar (elim_garak)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Because of course he lives, Facing the unknown, Grief, Love, Possible spoilers s8e05, Post s8e05 missing scene, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2020-03-02 15:36:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18813841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elim_garak/pseuds/AZ-5, https://archiveofourown.org/users/elim_garak/pseuds/Valonqar
Summary: Why did he claw his way out? Again? Knowing how it always ends? Knowing that each time he’d tried to escape the pull of this place, this life, this woman, he ended up crawling back over a pile of mud, shit, corpses, and broken oaths?A scene that was sloppily skipped over in the final cut of s8e05.





	What Magic

**Author's Note:**

> It just had to come out. 
> 
> English is not my mother tongue so I apologize for any improper bits you may find.
> 
> Because he lives. Because he's earned it. Because he's a good man. Even if he's too dumb to know it.

They say in the older times there was magic so powerful it could raise a man from his ashes. Summer would go by, then winter; thousand of seasons would pass, crops grow and wither thousand times over. They say these men would rise from the ashes long after their children were gone, their children’s children; long after their houses would perish, the walls they had built blow in the wind like dry leaves.

What do they know?

Those people who let the glorious tales drip from their tongues - old Maesters, septas, wet nurses - what do they know?

Do they know how it feels to rise from the ashes long after the battle is done? 

What it smells like - the sickening stench of the burnt flesh - as you drag your shuttered body from under the ruins of Red Keep? Where your children were born? Drew their first breath? Laughed their first laugh?

What do they know?  These people, these storytellers - do they know what it means to be the last man left standing? To outlive them all? All you held dear? Do they know what a man is -  _ who _ he is - once his children are gone and his house has perished?

But most of all…

Do they know  _ why? _

Does it say in the old books  _ why _ these men rose from the ashes only to face the world that was no longer their own?

Why did  _ he? _

Why did he not stay where he said he belonged? Buried under a pile of red rubble? Bleeding, broken, dying… in the arms of the woman he loved?

Why did he claw his way out? Again? Knowing how it always ends? Knowing that each time he’d tried to escape the pull of this place, this life, this woman, he ended up crawling back over a pile of mud, shit, corpses, and broken oaths?

What will he do in this barren waste of a land? Waste of a world? Where would he go? Who would he pledge his life to? His sword? Who would he fight for? Die for? Live for?

What oaths would he keep? What vows would he break? In this waste of a world that insists on being reduced to ashes no matter how many kings he stabs through the back? No matter how many hearts he breaks?

The Kingslayer. Man without honor. Oathbreaker. 

Why did he live? Today, and back on that road with his sword hand chopped off and tied to his neck? 

What powers are those - what magic - that could raise a man like him from the ashes? 

Twice?


End file.
